No More EP

After last year's successful collaboration "Bo Peep (Do U Right)", R&B singer Jeremih links up again with moody producer Shlohmo for a full EP's worth of songs, including the latter's previously released remix of the former's "Fuck U All the Time". Chance the Rapper guests.

Featured Tracks:

Few releases have so effectively shrugged at the supposed dichotomy of “alternative” and “traditional” R&B over the past few years than Late Nights with Jeremih, the free mixtape from Jeremih that quietly grew to be a cult favorite after dropping from left field in 2012. And anyway, that binary—which took real shape around 2011, thanks in large part to the clamor around the Weeknd’s landmark debut, House of Balloons—has always been more about the audience than about the artist. There are vague aesthetic similarities among R&B artists pegged as “alternative” (or otherwise)—a focus on vibe over narrative, a tendency to distort vocals to the point of disembodiment—but what it more often designates is a certain seal of approval, a go-ahead for guilt-free consumption by whatever your term of choice may be for those who’ve warmed to R&B in the 2010s but approach the bulk of the genre under the protective cloak of irony.

Late Nights, at once radio-driven and experimental, shared some of those aesthetics but managed to duck that conversation so thoroughly that it made you question if the conversation was worth having to begin with. Its oddness was approachable from all angles, as Jeremih and a league of ambitious producers (Mike WiLL Made It in his absolute prime, pop soothsayer Tricky Stewart, occasionally Jeremih himself) took cues from the sounds of the underground but never quite presented them as “cool.” All this was especially surprising coming from the guy best known for “Birthday Sex”, a doofy novelty hit that’s endured solely because people continue to have birthdays. But even then, there were glimmers of promise: in a 2009 acoustic performance of the same song, he transformed it into something intimate and feather-light, accompanying himself on piano.

When Jeremih initially linked last year with moody L.A. producer Shlohmo for Yours Truly and Adidas Originals’ Songs From Scratch series, it wasn’t such an improbable pairing: here was a singer willing to go all in with producers’ stranger impulses working with a beatmaker that possesses omnivorous tendencies, whose gooey sad-boy soundscapes draw from ghostly R&B balladry, abstracted hip-hop percussion, and hissy ambience alike. (The first half of last year’s Laid Out EP could, with very slight stretches of the imagination, be considered some warped form of R&B itself.) That collaboration, “Bo Peep (Do U Right)", was proof enough: gorgeously smoggy, humid, and sort of tragic despite the surface romance, with Jeremih’s weightless falsetto piercing through the groaning bassline, “Wish somebody would’ve seen us, baby.” It was heavier than Jeremih’s usual stuff, but it worked, at least as a one-off. A year later, the duo aim to replicate its magic on No More, their six-track collaboration; but where Jeremih floated on “Bo Peep,” the majority of the EP falls flat.

Shlohmo’s productions are typically dense and blurry, his bittersweet melodies rendered in smudgy sepia tones and built from intricately arranged layers of what sound like organized anxieties. When there are vocals, they’re often samples; even when they’re not, as with “Don’t Say No”, his lovely 2013 collaboration with How to Dress Well, vocals tend to serve as yet another instrument in the mix, rather than the focal point. Though “Bo Peep” proved an exception, Jeremih’s voice isn’t intended for this sort of environment; there’s a translucency to his falsetto that radiates when given the proper space, but gets bogged down by too much outside noise.

Late Night’s best moments— “773 Love,” “Fuck U All The Time,” “Go To The Mo”—shared a certain sense of delicacy, their productions defined primarily by negative space. No More could benefit from some of this airiness; instead, it often feels stifling, Jeremih’s voice mired in the layers of hi-hat twitches and bass grumblings. Title track “No More” burbles and quivers yet doesn’t quite move in any particular direction. “Let It Go” is pretty—it’s certainly the best new song on the project—but ultimately reads as a slightly subpar cousin to “Bo Peep”. And when the duo aim for sparseness, on skeletal closing track “The End,” they’re left with a handful of parts and not much whole; Jeremih’s a touch off-key and slightly out of time, and a tacked-on appearance from Chance the Rapper is a bizarre choice for a finale, entirely at odds with the warm, woozy sensuality of the preceding tracks.

Most questionable here is the inclusion of Shlohmo’s “Fuck U All the Time” remix, the original version of which he released well before the two ever crossed paths. It’s essentially just an extended version of the original, which boasts an additional Jeremih verse packed with mildly cute, mostly embarrassing lines like, “Don’t let the time ticky-icky-icky while I’m snapping off your bra/ And biting on your Vickies.” Moments like that are forgivable, if a bit dorky (and it’s far from the first remix of the song crammed with superfluous verses), but it’s harder to understand the impulse to improve upon a song that draws seductiveness from subtlety by piling more stuff on top—that familiar moaning bassline, those little beeps and clatters. It’s that same impulse that characterizes much of the past few years of so-called alt-R&B: pile on the effects, pitch down the voice, and let 'er rip. That impulse holds No More back from approaching the transcendence of Jeremih and Shlohmo’s first collaboration (or most of Late Nights): too much of the EP feels like a drawn-out remix of a song that didn’t really need it in the first place.